[257] Cfr. Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, 2te Auflage, i. 1.
[258] Ktesias explains this word as "devourer of men," but by means of Sanskṛit it can only be explained by substituting to the initial m one of the words that signify man, such as nara, ǵana, manava, mânusha, &c. Antikora would seem to be derived from the Sanskṛit antakara = destroyer, who puts an end to, killer.
[259] Ṛigv. ii. 38, 4.—In the fifty-fourth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the king who has no children makes the maiden seven years old manufacture a fisherman's net in the space of only one night.
[260] In the German legend we have the spinner in the moon. "Die Altmärkische Sage bei Temme 49, 'die Spinnerin im Monde,' wo ein Mädchen von seiner Mutter verwünscht wird, im Monde zu sitzen und zu spinnen, scheint entstellt, da jener Fluch sie nicht wegen Spinnens, sondern Tanzens im Mondschein trifft;" Simrock, Deutsche Mythologie, 2te Aufl. p. 23.—Cfr. also the first chapter of this work, and that on the bear, where we read of a girl dancing with the bear in the night.—Perhaps there is also some correspondence between the Vedic word râkâ and a-rachnê.
[261] Vy ućhâ duhitar divo mâ ćiraṁ tanutha apaḥ net tvâ stenaṁ yathâ ripuṁ tapâti sûro arćishâ; Ṛigv. v. 79, 9.
[262] Vritram avâbhinad dânum âurṇavâbham; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 18.—Ǵaǵńâno nu çatakratur vi pṛićhad iti mâtaram ka ugrâḥ ke ha çṛiṇvire âd îm çavasy abravîd âurṇavâbham ahîçuvam te putra santu nishṭuraḥ; Ṛigv. viii. 66, 1, 2.
[263] i. 802, 825.
[264] I observe, moreover, how in the Russian fables of Kriloff the same part is attributed to the spider as in the West to the wren (the regulus) and to the beetle. The eagle carries, without knowing it, a spider in its tail upon a tree; the spider then makes its web over it. Bird and spider therefore exchange places.
[265] Ṛigv. i. 72, 9.
[266] Vir na parṇâiḥ; Ib. i. 183, 1.